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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.

Ai Weiwei

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Ai Weiwei
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 18
Architect
Consultant
Contemporary Artist
Designer
Film Director
Human Rights Activist
Painter
Photographer
Sculptor
Social Activist
Peking
Wei-wei Ai
Weiwei Ai
Ai Wei Wei
Always
Definition
Never
Definitions
Communication
Wall
Expression
Freedom
Exhibiting
Art
Museums
Way
Hanging

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I can still wake up the next day and feel that there's something that needs to be done, which always amuses me.
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Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.
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I don’t want the next generation to fight the same fight as I did.
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I grew up in a desert, which has no kind of imagination.
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I hope that my work expresses my worldview and encourages people to exchange ideas.
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What is important is that we actively express our thoughts and wishes, in every realm that we can access.
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China spends a lot of resources and effort on gaining soft power over culture. The hope is that it can be the last lifeline for the Party's survival. Obviously, the idea will fail.
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I don't think my father had a direct influence on me, but I do think, more or less, I was influenced by his independent individualism. And the kind of condition he had when he was in this society - the kind of mistreatment society gave him.
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In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.
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I think the pearls - one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl - really show a kind of [society] condition.
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If you just turn to your paper or television each day, there are thousands of stories that are much more shocking than the gallery artworks.
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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it...it's very disturbing.
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I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate [the two] is itself a very political intention.
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A historical property has morals and ethics of the society that created it and it can be revived. What I mean is that we can discover new possibilities from the process of dismantling, transforming, and recreating.
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If we all say the same thing, then I think the government has to listen. But because no one is saying it, I become singled out, even though what I'm saying is common sense. It's very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values.
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My image of what a city should be - the super-rich and all the poor and desperate and the people who have some kind of a desire. It's a surviving game, people trying to survive on many different levels.
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I want people to see their own power.
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It [success] is really by mistake.
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Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
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